*start* 01303 00024 US Date: 8 Oct. 1981 9:48 am PDT (Thursday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: telephone trivia (suggestion from Paxton) To: VoiceProject^ --------------------------- Date: 8 Oct. 1981 8:11 am PDT (Thursday) From: Paxton.PA Subject: telephone trivia To: Swinehart Dan, Please add this to your list of features if it's not already there -- I keep forgetting to cancel call forwarding and would really like to say "forward my calls to x1234 for the next 3 hours" and have it automatically time out. Trivial feature, but it would sure help me. Bill --------------------------- Date: 8 Oct. 1981 8:45 am PDT (Thursday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: Re: telephone trivia In-reply-to: Your message of 8 Oct. 1981 8:11 am PDT (Thursday) To: Paxton cc: Swinehart Sure. Most systems cancel forwarding every midnight anyhow. We intend to have phones follow your "login" around, which will help sometimes. Ultimately, they may follow YOU around -- which will either be good or bad -- just call us Pandora. In any case, (Motherhood coming, watch out) all these features will be programmable by clients outside the boundaries of our servers and terminals -- e.g., from the workstation. If anything's the main idea, that's it. ------------------------------------------------------------ *start* 03088 00024 US Date: 7 Oct. 1981 9:27 pm PDT (Wednesday) Sender: Owicki.PA Subject: Minutes of meeting on EtherPhone Smarts, 10-7-81 To: VoiceProject^ cc: Owicki From: Owicki, Swinehart Reply-To: Owicki We now have a rough idea of the state-structure of the Etherphone Smarts. I hope to start coding next week. States Idle Parsing (interpreting an event sequence from the etherphone) Initiating (trying to place an outgoing call) Incoming (an incoming call has arrived and Etherphone is ringing) Conversing (connection has been established) DisconnectInitiate (Etherphone has signalled termination) DisconnectIncoming (Other end of call has signalled termination) These might be called the "major" states. There will be substates in many cases -- parsing is the most obvious example. The last two states might disappear, but we're leaving them in for the time being. Events that cause a state transition may come from the etherphone or from the server. Events from the etherphone include offhook, onhook, and some set of digits, letters, and special characters. Events from the network include canconnect -- requests information only. Legal in any state, but causes no state changes, so not listed in transitions below. alert -- announces an incoming call abort -- cancel current conversation or connect attempt converse -- informs of sockets for conversing {rejected, busy, accepted, OKBut} -- returns from CanConnect and Alert State transitions Where an event is not mentioned as a transition from a state, it causes no state change. It may cause some sort of error report to the initiator of the event. Event New State Actions Idle Off-hook --> Parsing Alert --> Incoming Send ring to EP (Done by setting up a process, which is killed when leaving Incoming state) Parsing EP-events --> Parsing Silence to EP EP-end --> Initiating On-Hook --> Idle Initiating On entry Create conversation CanConnect Send RingBack to EP Alert rejected --> disconnectIncoming Send error sound to EP busy --> disconnectIncoming Send busy signal to EP On-Hook --> disconnectInitiated send abort to server accepted --> conversing conversation.join OKBut --> parsing (to be done later!) Note -- we ultimately plan a work station which is much smarter here. In particular, a rejected or busy may cause further parsing or may remain in the Initiating state. The state transitions above should be sufficient for the first cut. Incoming Off-hook --> Conversing conversation.join kill ringing process Abort --> Idle kill ringing process Conversing Abort --> DisconnectIncoming Send dial tone to EP On-hook --> DisconnectInitiated Send silence to EP conversation.leave DisconnectInitiate At entry conversation.leave --> Idle DisconnnectIncoming Time-expired --> Parsing dialtone to EP On-hook --> Idle silence to EP *start* 03979 00024 US Date: 8 Oct. 1981 12:08 pm PDT (Thursday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: Minutes of an RPC-related conversation with Andrew Birrell To: VoiceProject^, Birrell cc: Swinehart Susan and I talked with Andrew on Monday 10/5. We clarified our intended use of the RPC. It looks quite doable, although in places a little strange at first. Basic idea: If a program module wants to use some procedures from (a single or fixed number of instances of) an interface that is to be implemented remotely, the program module just imports the interface and calls the procedures. When the system is configured, a "stub" module is included to export the interface. The stub in turn knows how to turn procedure calls into network communications and to turn network communications into return records. At run time you have to "bind" the stub to some remote implementation, I think through specific calls. The normal way to do this is to communicate with Grapevine, which associates very specific bindings with very specific names. When a "server" (provider of remote binding) comes up, it enters its net location in this data base. I think the general notion is that such bindings should last a long time, but there's no real problem with their coming and going as various things come on line, etc. Once the bindings are known, they need not be consulted again in order to perform the RPCs; the RPC implementation will use the binding info to create/destroy sequenced connections, etc. First problem and solution: The Lark program won't be powerful or big enough to crank up a full Pup byte stream for contacting this binding service on Grapevine. So we'll implement a simple packet-exchange thing on a Thrush which will do the binding for its client and return the results. Second problem and solution: Each Fone will have to initiate communications with time-varying numbers of Smarts (usually 0, 1, or 2), as the Smarts register with it. This kind of thing is not readily doable in Mesa, remote or not, at the "interface record" level -- that's why various object-oriented kludges were invented. In addition, the standard ways of generating "objects" -- as records of procedures and data -- need to be modified a bit in the absence of a shared address space or something known in the language trade as persistent closures of local frames (next time you want to impress your grandmother ...). Our approach: The remote Smarts can use the standard Grapevine means (actually a tuned version that we will provide in Thrush via the Net object -- to which the Smarts WILL bind via Grapevine) to bind to and communicate with its (single) Fone. The first communication will be a Register procedure, whose argument will be a record of other (remote) procedures, bound to that Smart's environment, that the Fone can use to initiate actions later. As long as the Registration procedure is in progress, the record of procedures will remain valid. So the Smarts will have to FORK a process to call the registration procedure. The procedure will not return until a Deregister procedure is called later to destroy the "connection". The Register procedure could return right away when called from a local Smarts -- to save PSB's -- but whether/how to detect the difference is problematical. A remaining problem: Suppose Smarts[i] calls a Fone action. On occasion, the Fone will want to know which registered Smarts procedure record corresponds to Smarts[i], in order to initiate a later call to that Smarts in particular (it comes up). We'll need some sort of unique identifier that forms a part of the Registered procedure record and is supplied in each Smarts=>Fone call. In previous designs the object handle automatically provided this identifier, but in this design the procedure record is passed by value, so we'll have to make such an identifier explicit, or dredge it out of the RPC implementation. Have I left anything crucial out, Andrew or Susan? Dan *start* 00455 00024 US Date: 8 Oct. 1981 2:48 pm PDT (Thursday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: 1.5 Mbps gateway To: Boggs cc: VoiceProject^.pa David, My best guess for when we will need a gateway to 1.5 Mbps is November 10. Severo will come up with an Alto I when needed. Besides a gateway, I will want to run a version of Etherwatch and perhaps Peekpup on the 1.5 net. Given the microcode and an Ethernet controller, that seems straightforward. -Larry *start* 00679 00024 US Mail-from: Arpanet host SRI-UNIX rcvd at 20-OCT-81 1624-PDT Date: 20 Oct 81 18:19:55-EDT (Tue) From: J C Pistritto To: unix-wizards at Sri-Unix Subject: 8086 C Compiler Via: BMD70; 20 Oct 81 18:24-EDT Via: Brl.ArpaNet; 20 Oct 81 15:43-PDT A group named Virtual Systems Inc. (unsure of the address), will be marketing a C compiler for the 8086 soon, for an undisclosed price. This compiler is based on the Whitesmith's Code for the PDP-11, and generates about 15% more instructions on the 8086 than the 11 version. Exact availability date is unknown, but thought someone might be interested. -Joe Pistritto- *start* 01078 00024 US Date: 13 Oct. 1981 3:29 pm PDT (Tuesday) From: Ornstein.PA Subject: Memories To: Stewart cc: Ornstein Did you ever get an answer from Thacker to: - - - - - Date: 21 Sept. 1981 2:11 pm PDT (Monday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: 16Kx1 Static memories To: Thacker cc: Ornstein, Stewart We've been thinking about the Etherphone II memory system. We had been planning to use a few (e.g. 4) 2Kx8 statics for about 8K bytes. That now seems tight. The next step is probably 8 16Kx1 statics with space for another row of 8 for up to 32 K bytes. Above that, probably we would need to go to 8 64K dynamic chips. Questions: Is this thinking right? How hard is it to build a dynamic memory system using one of the new controller devices? What is the right 16Kx1 chip to use? (I noticed that the D0 Map uses dynamic memories). -Larry - - - - - I'm currently planning just for 16K bytes of Ram (eight of the 2K x 8). Should I allow for more - twice that? It's easy at this stage so if there is any question in your mind, we probably should- let me know. S. *start* 00313 00024 US Date: 13 Oct. 1981 4:08 pm PDT (Tuesday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Re: Memories In-reply-to: Your message of 13 Oct. 1981 3:29 pm PDT (Tuesday) To: Ornstein cc: Stewart Plan for 32K for now. Chuck didn't answer. Have you heard from Joe Patti on the search for slow 16K x 1's? -Larry *start* 03408 00024 US Date: 13 Oct. 1981 6:01 pm PDT (Tuesday) From: Ousterhout.PA Subject: Conferencing revisited To: VoiceProject^.pa Here are some thoughts about conferencing and recording of conversations. The overall idea is to make the transmission protocols simple and uniform by using multi-casting with a single packet size. Comments are invited, of course. 1. Dan informs me that it is possible to get Dorado microcode to respond to multiple Ethernet addresses, so 2. I propose that multi-casting should be used between Etherphones and the VFS. Each conversation is assigned (by Thrush) an address to be used, and all Etherphones change their network address to that conversation address for the duration of the conversation. Thus all Etherphones will get all packets related to a conversation. Since the VFS may be taking part in several conversations, it will have to be able to respond to several addresses. 3. A packet intended for just one element of a conversation will have to be identified internally with the desired recipient, since all elements of the conversation will receive it. An example of such a packet is an RPC from Thrush to make one of the Etherphones leave the conversation. Dan and Susan: how much will this complicate Thrush and/or RPC? Since the VFS will respond to multiple addresses, only Thrush/Lark and Lark/Lark communication will be complicated. 4. Lark and Bluejay will receive their own transmissions, and will have to throw them away. 5. I think that multi-casting is the simplest way to (eventually) solve or (initially) ignore the merging problem. By using multi-casting it won't be necessary to merge and retransmit 3-way conversations from some central point. I suggest that each element of a conversation be left to its own means to handle merging. For the VFS, I think it has enough horsepower to do the merges. For the Etherphones, if one Etherphone has enough horsepower, then they all do, so it doesn't matter that all of the Etherphones in a conversation are merging the same stuff at the same time (there's no good reason for having one Etherphone merge for the others). 6. It seems to me that the necessity for merging will be infrequent and short-lived. In most conversations, there will be only one active source at a time. If the Etherphones don't have enough grunts to do merging, then it might work out OK to use some brute force technique like: -- bleep when two sources are active -- alternate back and forth between the various sources on a packet by packet basis. These are both pretty gross, but they would at least allow us to do simple conferencing in the short run. In the long run, there will (?) be faster 8088's that will (?) have enough horsepower. 6. Lastly, I propose that the VFS should receive packets just like Etherphones, i.e. small packets every 20 ms. I don't know how this will affect its performance, but I'm certain it will make life a lot simpler during the initial implementation. The overall goal behind these suggestions is to keep life as simple as possible during the early implementation, while still leaving open general schemes like 3-element conversations. If we implement multiple packet sizes and central merging, then we pay the implementation cost immediately. The open question is whether there will be enough horsepower for the simple implementation. -John- *start* 01156 00024 US Date: 14 Oct. 1981 8:03 am PDT (Wednesday) From: Owicki.PA Subject: Re: Conferencing revisited In-reply-to: Ousterhout's message of 13 Oct. 1981 6:01 pm PDT (Tuesday) To: Ousterhout cc: VoiceProject^ Reply-To: Owicki John, Using multicasts makes sense, as long as the merging problem can be solved for the etherphones. As far as I can see, multicasts do not complicate the server much if at all. The particular example you mention, where Thrush asks an Etherphone to leave the conversation, is not a problem because that is control information, which is going to a different socket than voice information in any case. Given that control and voice always go to different sockets, I don't see any case where a voice packet would need to go to just one host. If that's right then no internal destination id is needed. I'm assuming that we get some automatic message routing to processes on a machine in Cedar. Is that valid? What I'm thinking of is that when Thrush and BlueJay share a Dorado, we need to have incoming messages sent to the appropriate place, and I have assumed the mechanism for that already exists. Sue *start* 00642 00024 US Date: 14 Oct. 1981 8:13 am PDT (Wednesday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: Re: Conferencing revisited In-reply-to: Ousterhout's message of 13 Oct. 1981 6:01 pm PDT (Tuesday) To: Ousterhout cc: VoiceProject^ I like this approach better than the other approaches, especially at the beginning, since it most closely approaches the ideal (personal opinion) for doing conferencing. The hard part about the control business will probably not be at the Thrush end but at the Lark end, since it hairs up a hand-tuned Pup package. We should probably get a two-party conversation going first, but aside from that, I'm with you. *start* 01174 00024 US Date: 19 Oct. 1981 4:16 pm PDT (Monday) From: Ornstein.PA Subject: Frequencies To: Boggs cc: VoiceProject^ There are several fundamental frequencies in the Etherphone: 1. The Processor clock - nominally 5 MHZ 2. The SLC clock for running the Ethernet - nominally 1.5 MHZ 3. A T1 clock for digitizing and re-analogizing voice - 1.536 MHZ 4. Clocks for 2400 and 300 baud asynchronous lines It would eliminate synchronizers and be quite motherhoody if we could run all this stuff off one basic clock with various count-downs. Roughly it looks feasible - say you took 9 x 1.536 as basic clock, that would be appropriate for the processor (which divides it by three and would thus run the Proc. at 3 x 1.536). Obviously the T1 line would love it (it was set for T1). You can get close enough to 300 and 2400 baud by counting down (we were going to do that anyway). So that leaves the Ethernet - the question being - would we be able to talk to a divided-by-two 3 MB Alto Gateway if we ran at 1.536? Another form of the question (I think) is - could we (at 2 x1.536 = 3.072 MB) talk to a regular Alto "3 MB" ethernet (and could it talk to us)? Severo *start* 00366 00024 US Date: 19 Oct. 1981 11:42 am PDT (Monday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Re: Files archived To: VoiceProject^.pa I was annoyed over the weekend because [Indigo] was out of space. I moved a bunch of stuff to [Maxc] and archived it. Mostly obsolete Auburn stuff. There are now around 900 free IFS pages on [Indigo]. -Larry *start* 00457 00024 US Date: 20 Oct. 1981 12:10 pm PDT (Tuesday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Ethernet Voice soon, says Massaro To: VoiceInterest^.pa According to the Oct. 19 Information Systems News, OPD will soon announce a voice store and forward capability for attachment to STARs. Massaro also notes that the experimental Ethernet at the Palo Alto Research Center can handle 20 simultaneous telephone calls in addition to a normal data load. -Larry *start* 04373 00024 US Date: 28 Sept. 1981 10:01 am PDT (Monday) From: Deutsch.PA Subject: Re: D0 LoadMb In-reply-to: Your message of 27 Sept. 1981 1:52 pm PDT (Sunday) To: Stewart Actually, I have a program that converts Dolphin .MB files to .BR files in the format that LRJ wants. I'm sure you (or I) could easily modify it to load the microcode directly. The program is called D0PackMB.Run on my Phylum directory. The source file is d0packmb.bcpl and the command file for loading it is loadd0packmb.cm. (It uses several library packages which by now have undoubtedly been tape-archived, but I can send them to you directly if you want.) The command line format is >D0PackMB xxx.MB xxx.BR [startlabel/startaddress [symbol]] where startlabel/startaddress is the branch address for LRJ (defaults to 0) and symbol is the external name for the first word of the data in the .BR file (defaults to RamImage). Since the program is quite short, I'm including a copy of it with this message. (Ignore the comment which implies that it allows multiple .MB files.) Good luck. --------------------------------------------------------- // D0PackMB -- Pack a D0 .MB file for use with LRJ // last edited August 6, 1980 9:46 AM // Command line format is: // D0PackMB xxx.MB xxx.BR [startlabel/startaddress] (xxx.MB startlabel/startaddress)* [symbol] get "streams.d" external [ // O.S. Closes Endofs MoveBlock Noop OpenFile SetBlock Wo; Ws; WriteBlock Zero fpComCm // GP SetupReadParam ReadParam // ReadMB ReadMB // WriteBR StartBRfile StartBRnames; BRname StartBRlabels; BRlabel StartBRcode; BRcode EndBRblock EndBRfile ] structure BS: [ length byte; char^1,255 byte ] static [ imx = -1 imap imv ni sa sav ] let D0PackMB() be [ let com = OpenFile(0, ksTypeReadOnly, charItem, 0, fpComCm) let nv, swv = vec 100, vec 100 SetupReadParam(nv, swv, com, swv) let inst = ReadParam("IW", ".MB file (input): ", nv, swv) let outst = ReadParam("OW", ".BR file (output): ", nv, swv) let svv = vec 100 sav = svv test Endofs(com) ifso sa = 0 ifnot [ ReadParam($P, 0, svv, swv) sa = readSA(svv) ] let name = vec 128 MoveBlock(name, "RamImage", 5) unless Endofs(com) do ReadParam($P, 0, name, swv) Closes(com) StartBRfile(outst) StartBRcode() BRcode(0) // Bldr zeros the first word! But LRJ wants an extra word on the front anyway let imp = vec 10000b // Imaginary to real address map SetBlock(imp, -1, 10000b) imap = imp let imvec = vec 30000b // Holds resulting IM data imv = imvec let r = ReadMB(inst, 20, pmemproc, (sa eq -1? psymproc, Noop)) BRcode(imv, ni*3) let w0, w1, w2 = 7777b lshift 4, sa, sa // Unclear whether word 1 or 2 is the starting address BRcode(lv w0, 3) EndBRblock() StartBRnames() BRname(#140, 0, name) // entry label xxx let len = name>>BS.length+1 for i = 0 to 4 do name>>BS.char^(len+i) = table[ $L; $a; $s; $t; 0]!i name>>BS.length = len+3 BRname(#140, 0, name) // entry label xxxLast EndBRblock() StartBRlabels() BRlabel(1, 0) // initialize the initial label BRlabel(2, 1+ni*3) // initialize the Last label EndBRblock() Closes(inst) EndBRfile() Closes(outst) test sa eq -1 ifso [ Ws("Error: starting address not found*N") ] ifnot test r eq 0 ifso [ Wo(ni); Ws(" instructions*N") ] ifnot [ Ws("Error: "); Ws(r); Ws("*N") ] ] and readSA(sav) = valof // Read starting address from string, return value if numeric or -1 if not [ if sav>>BS.length eq 0 resultis -1 // null string let sa = 0 for i = 1 to sav>>BS.length do [ let c = sav>>BS.char^i test (c ge $0) & (c le $7) ifso sa = sa*10b+c-$0 ifnot resultis -1 ] resultis sa ] and pmemproc(memx, width, name) = valof [ test (name!0 eq 1000b+$I) & (name!1 eq $M*400b) ifso [ imx = memx; resultis pimproc ] ifnot resultis Noop ] and pimproc(addr, data) be [ let ima = data!3 let p = imv+ni*3 p!0, p!1, p!2 = (ima lshift 4) + (data!2 rshift 12), data!0, data!1 imap!addr = ima ni = ni+1 ] and psymproc(memx, value, name) be // Look up a symbolic starting address if (sa eq -1) & (memx eq imx) then // might have found it already [ if name>>BS.length ne sav>>BS.length return for i = 1 to name>>BS.length do [ let c1 = name>>BS.char^i let c2 = sav>>BS.char^i if (c1 & not 40b) ne (c2 & not 40b) return // case shift ] sa = imap!value Ws(name); Ws(" ="); Wo(sa); Ws("*N") ] *start* 00887 00024 US Date: 29 Sept. 1981 10:24 am PDT (Tuesday) From: Deutsch.PA Subject: Re: D0 LoadMb In-reply-to: Your message of 29 Sept. 1981 10:08 am PDT (Tuesday) To: Stewart Here's the little program that we use to generate the loader for the Dolphin Smalltalk-76 microcode. -------------------------------------- // Load D0 microcode and boot // last edited April 16, 1981 11:45 AM // To load up the Smalltalk microcode, the command is: // >Bldr d0smalltalkmicrocode/s 30000/c d0ram smalltalk // where smalltalk.BR is the file produced by D0PackMB external [ RamImage; RamImageLast ] structure [ blank word 2; blank bit 4; startAddr bit 12 ] let D0Ram() be [ let LRJ = table[ #61036 ] let SDP = table[ #61037; #1401 ] if SDP(0) ne 1 then // change starting address for partition 2 boot RamImageLast>>startAddr = RamImageLast>>startAddr + 2 LRJ(RamImage, 1) ] *start* 01659 00024 US Date: 15-Oct-81 10:16:14 PDT (Thursday) From: Murray.PA Subject: 8085 Assembler and Binder To: Stewart cc: Murray Are you on one DLionMicrocoders^? Do you know Pat OLMSTEAD? ..... ------------------------------ Date: 14 Oct. 1981 4:40 pm PDT (Wednesday) From: OLMSTEAD.PA Subject: 8085 Assembler and Binder To: IOPUsers^ cc: DLionMicrocoders^, SDD-WSDes^, SDD-Arch^, SDD-Diag^ Reply-To: OLMSTEAD I have converted the 8085 assembler and binder to run under Tajo. Along the way, I plugged many minor and several major storage leaks; I now think I've got them all. The programs are I8085AssemblerDLion.bcd and I8085BinderDLion.bcd, stored on directory [Iris]8085>. The interface to both programs is basically the same as it would have been on the Alto if it had ever worked: To the SimpleExec, type I8085AssemblerDLion src1 src2 src3... I8085BinderDLion cfg1 cfg2 cf3... where the src's are .asm files and the cfg's are .cfg files. Timing comparisons are difficult, since the Alto-based assembler will die if fed more than 2 files at a time, or the disk doesn't have enough room for the .lst, .sym, etc. files. However: "I8085AssemblerDLion all-the-19-files-in-Domino" took 16 minutes the last time I checked, and that was with NIL checking on, which I have since turned off. "I8085BinderDLion Domino" takes 1 minute; on the Alto it takes from 15 to 20. "If you use these programs, I would appreciate a message letting me know. This version has not been extensively tested, so be sure to let me know of any problems you experience with it." Pat ---------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 00823 00024 US Date: 17 Oct. 1981 3:00 pm PDT (Saturday) Sender: Stewart.PA Subject: Incoming call management From: Gifford.PA To: VoiceProject^.pa Reply-To: Stewart Date: 17 Oct. 1981 12:17 pm PDT (Saturday) From: Gifford.PA Subject: Incoming call management To: Stewart, Swinehart, Ornstein cc: Gifford Voice folks, Although you may have thought of this already, I thought I would pass along an idea I heard from Al Spector at CMU. If an outside line is ringing (and not being answered), you may wish to forward the incoming call to a phone within the Etherphone network. In this case, you do not have to answer the outside line. Simply ring the Etherphone (or more than one Etherphone, if you like the shotgun approach), and if it is answered, pick up the outside line and establish the talk path. Dave *start* 01511 00024 US Date: 19 Oct. 1981 9:55 am PDT (Monday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: Re: Incoming call management In-reply-to: Gifford's message of 17 Oct. 1981 12:17 pm PDT (Saturday) To: Gifford cc: VoiceProject^ Reply-To: Swinehart Yes. In fact, once we have real trunks, we could "trip ringing" without actually signalling "answer" (that's done by doing a "reverse battery" operation), and provide various call progress signals -- even recorded announcements about what kinds of forwarding activities were taking place. At present, this would be strictly proscribed by the telco regulations, but these days negotiation is the watchword, so it would be fun to toy with some of this stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Oct. 1981 12:17 pm PDT (Saturday) From: Gifford.PA Subject: Incoming call management To: Stewart, Swinehart, Ornstein cc: Gifford Voice folks, Although you may have thought of this already, I thought I would pass along an idea I heard from Al Spector at CMU. If an outside line is ringing (and not being answered), you may wish to forward the incoming call to a phone within the Etherphone network. In this case, you do not have to answer the outside line. Simply ring the Etherphone (or more than one Etherphone, if you like the shotgun approach), and if it is answered, pick up the outside line and establish the talk path. Dave ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *start* 01121 00024 US Date: 21 Oct. 1981 5:02 pm PDT (Wednesday) From: Ornstein.PA Subject: Hardware Questions To: Ornstein, Stewart 1. Intel 8237 a. Does 8237 re-prioritize in single transfer mode after each byte transferred - even if the lower priority guy holds onto his request (in case a higher priority guy comes in) b. Similarly - does it re-issue ADSTRB on each new byte (in single transfer mode) in case the other DMA got in and polluted the latch. c. on a write from memory to device, how long between stopping write-device and stopping read-memory? (This gives us some part of the 80ns the 8068 needs - the memory will give some more delay). Larry Goss 496-7360 2. AMD 8068 a. is the data hold time really 80 ns. (and adress 60) ? Data Hold = TG1HD1X and Address = TAHD1X (pgs 11 - 12) b. what does "synchronous" mean under clocking ( pg 8 under clk pin description) c. is port config forced by reset (Master clear, Slave Encrypt) and unsettable in Direct Control mode? (We'd really like single port) Chuck Lytle 408-727 1300 applications guy real engineer is Subodh Banerjee - going to call us *start* 04566 00024 US Date: 30 Oct. 1981 9:03 am PST (Friday) From: Ornstein.PA Subject: ETP QUESTIONS To: Stewart I haven't gotten much done I'm afraid. Other distractions plus now I'm sick. What I've thought about mostly is the synchronizing of the 8068 and either I don't understand or there are some serious problems. After thinking about just a few of these I'm inclined to flick it in and live with the 20% degradation of 4 MHZ everywhere. I'm afraid the synchronizing/handshaking problems are a bag of worms - see below. Then let's talk. 1. Is it true that with your scheme, wherein the Processor does the first input or output from/to the 8068, we don't need the kind of address muxing shown in Fig 37 - because the chip only sees that one MAS? Do other devices need it (the muxing)? (8274, 8251, 8259?) 2. I don't fully understand the need for the buffering of the AD bus to/from the 8068 (ENCAD) when it runs at 4 MHZ. Suppose, for example, the DMA is trying to read something from the 8068 to memory. The 8068 stops the show (via DMA0RDY) until it gets the IORD synced up to make MDS (or SDS) and has the data ready. Presumably the DMA is giving the memory a giant long MWR while it's waiting. When the DMA0RDY is finally given, it means the 8068 has its data on the bus (the IORD got through the synchronizer and made an MDS at about the same time DMA0RDY came on). So far presumably no problem, right? The DMA will then shortly take away its MEMWR, and shortly after, the IORD, and finally the DACK. I assume the problem is making sure the 8068 lets go of the bus expeditiously for ensuing use? Presumably that's delayed because of the synchronizing of the trailing edge of IORD to make the trailing edge of MDS which then causes the 8068 to let go of the bus. In the meantime somebody else might be trying to use the bus and the 8068n would be dumping onto it. For the other way - DMA reading memory and writing to the 8068 - I assume the equivalent problem is that the 8068 (because of the slownes in seeing IOWR go away thanks to the synchronizing) might still be sucking data off the bus after the memory quit sending (having more quickly seen the end of MEMRD)? If these are really the problems, couldn't we fix them easier by making sure that the trailing edge of IORD and IOWR somehow got around the synchronizers fast? Anyway I don't understand how the flop enabling the 8282 outputs onto ENCAD works. Presumably the latch is to hold the local (ENCAD) bus correct (for writing into the 8068) - even after the rest of the world proceeds. Presumably the IORD reset of the flop is to get such previously latched contents off the local (ENCAD) bus for a later IORD of the 8068. But the IORD reset is unqualified. What if the rest of the world goes on, following an IOWR to the 8068, to do some other IORD. That'll kill the 8068's local ENCAD, which it maybe hasn't yet finished putting away. And what about the chip selects? They aren't synchronized. What happens when they go away? (N.B. they aren't latched by MAS in Direct Control mode). In fact it doesn't look like they HAVE to be (synchronized) for their onset - since they only determine whether or not the chip will respond to the later arriving synchronized IORD/IOWR. And maybe by having them not synchronized, the chip automatically falls off the bus immediately when the DACK disappears - apparently solving the problem discussed above. 3. In any case, I think we can't use ENCMASDACK or ENCSLVDACK just to DC reset the DMA0RDY flop - since that will hold it reset despite efforts to turn it back on once we've synchronized IORD (or IOWR). Not easy to fix. Might use a JK flop and 4MHZ clock - turn it off (not RDY) when you see a 4MHZ-SYNCHRONIZED ENCMASDACK or ENCSLVDACK (must be synced or will runt) But that syncing may be too slow a response to the DMA. In fact I don't see any spec about how fast you have to have READY down (to the DMA) after the IORD or IOWR. They just show set-up and hold times relative to the DMA clock and it may be that if you take READY up or down asynchronously with that clock, the DMA doesn't synchronize it.??? 4. How can we be sure with our synchronizer that in worst case we don't violate the max allowable width of MDS? It's an IORD synchronized to 4 mhz but I don't see any upper limit on how long the IORD might be and in fact with our saying not Ready, it will stretch way out, no? Will the Z8068 maybe get confused and think that we're giving another MDS??? From all this you can see my state of confusion. Welcome home. S. *start* 00837 00024 US Date: 3 Nov. 1981 5:12 pm PST (Tuesday) From: Swinehart.PA Subject: Lark.GV To: Birrell cc: VoiceProject^, Swinehart Reply-To: Swinehart I think I mentioned in passing once that it might be useful for the voice project to have a registry to play with. Possibly it won't be necessary after things have settled down, but I think it would be a lot safer during the development if we could keep our stuff out of the main stream. So, would it be possible for you to create the registry Lark.GV, probably residing on Cabernet and Zinfandel, with owners Swinehart, Stewart, Owicki (and one of you ex-Officio, I imagine)? I do not believe we will be sending any messages directly to names in this registry, at least at first -- we'll mainly be using the authentication and the connect-sites. Thanks, Dan Swinehart *start* 00990 00024 US Date: 3 Nov. 1981 10:50 pm PST (Tuesday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Memory bus data transceiver backwards To: Ornstein cc: Stewart According to my 8286 data book, when the T (transmit) pin is HIGH, the A pins are inputs and the B pins are outputs. On page one, MWR' is driving T, but the B pins are on the memory side. We must either use MRD' for T or use the B pins on the AD0-7 side. Since the memories present less loading than all the junk we've got on the processor bus, and since the B pins are beefier, i suggest we turn the transceiver around, so that the A pins connect to BDATA and the B pins to AD0-7. Incidently, if we do it that way, and we use the time difference between MEMR' anmd IOW' on the DMA to provide the 8068 data hopld time, the transceiver will not be turned off "early", rather the data won't become invalid on the AD bus until a transceiver propagation delay after MRD' going high disables the outputs of the memory chips. -Larry *start* 00628 00024 US Date: 3 Nov. 1981 11:55 pm PST (Tuesday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Bugs on page 38 To: Ornstein cc: Stewart On page 38, all the control logic for this scheme could be generated by a single 256 by 4 ROM. That would save a couple chips. page 38 corrections: MCS' should be GND, not SELENCMAS'. SELENCMAS' doesn't do anything useful! The gates generating ENCRDEN' and ENCWREN' have HLDA' as an input. That should be the bubble input AND of HLDA and SELECMAS'. Otherwise, if the processor does IO to some OTHER device while an encryption is in progress, the 8068 would become de-selected. -Larry *start* 11236 00024 US Date: 5 Nov. 1981 11:10 am PST (Thursday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: 8068 + 9517 To: Ornstein cc: Stewart This message is a series of notes about the encryption chip and DMA controller. Some of them are copied from earlier messages We want to use an 8068 encryption chip in an 8088 system. We need to have DMA driven memory to memory encrypt and decrypt, "Electronic Code Book" (block ciphering) only. We would like to run the processor as fast as possible. Today that means 5 MHz, limited by the 8237-5 (Intel version of AMD 9517. Fastest 9517 is 4 MHz.) and by the I8259 interrupt controller. Someday, 8 MHz 8088's will be available too. We can probably live with running the processor at 4 MHz as we do not need the bus bandwidth (today) and probably will not be running the software within 20 percent of flat out (I hope). 1. Intel 8237/ AM 9517 Since the 8068 is so fast, we would like to give it a bus cycle priority higher than that of the processor, but lower than any other DMA device. We plan to encrypt blocks which are long enough to cause data-late errors on our other DMA devices if the encryption ties up the bus. We plan to run everything in "single-transfer" mode, so that the processor gets every other bus cycle and (we hope) the DMAs re-arbitrate DMA request priority between every cycle. We want to use, then, the two lowest priority DMA channels, one for memory-to-8068 and the other for 8068-to-memory. The 9517 has a "Single-transfer" mode that does a one byte DMA transfer each time the processor grants the bus. The intended purpose appears to be to assure the processor gets half the cycles. The 9517 data sheet does not say whether or not the 9517 re-prioritizes the DMA requests between such single transfers. Since the 8068 is so fast, it will always be requesting. If the 9517 does not re-prioritize, the 8068 will lock out the higher priority DMA devices, causing data-late errors. We have 7 DMA channels, 6 devices plus a cascaded 9517 (one of the other devices also has built in DMA controllers, so that channel is also "cascade mode" on the 9517). We want to use the same 8-bit latch for the high order address bits for both 9517s. Does the 9517 assume that it has a private latch or does it re-issue ADSTRB on each new byte (in single transfer mode) in case the other DMA got in and changed the latch contents? (The same question applies when the 9517 re-arbitrates and switches channels - it must reload the external latch in such cases. The data sheet doesn't say.) When you do a DMA transfer from memory to device, the 9517 says MEMR to the memory and IOWR to the device, the data just flows down the bus. The 9517 appears to hold MEMR active longer than IOWR, providing some data hold time to the device. How long? The only way to tell seems to be to subtract TDCTR-TDCTW. I ask because the 8068 needs a very long hold time. USE OF 8068 MAS': There appear to be no specs relating MAS' to the clock. min max 32 MAS' width 80 34 MCS' low to MAS' high (CS setup) 0 35 MAS' high to MCS' high (CS hold) 60 36 Addr valid to MAS' high (address setup) 55 37 MAS' high to address invalid (address hold) 60 Ideally, we want to use the 8068 in single-port multiplexed control mode, so that the processor could load the keys and set up the chip, then we could set up the input and output dma channels for the actual ciphering operation. Unfortunately, multiplexed control mode requires that MAS' latch one of the bus bits (and MCS') to select an internal register. 8088 running at 4 MHz min max TCLCL clock period 250 TCLCH clock low 152 TCHCL clock high 85 TLHLL ALE width TCLCH-20 132 TLLAX addr hold after ALE, TCHCL-10 75 TAVAL addr setup to ALE low, TCLCH-60 92 So for the 8088 controlling the cycle, ALE works fine. Now what about the 8088 controlled RD' and WR' signals? We would OR RD' and WR' to create MDS' and use 8088 DT/R' for 8068 MR/W' (inverted) 8068 requirements on MR/W' and MDS': 42 MR/W' setup before MDS' low 100 43 MR/W' hold after MDS' high 25 44 MDS' width 200 1000 45 clk low to MDS' high 20 70 47 data setup before MDS' high 125 48 data hold after MDS' high 80 50 MDS' high to read data inval. (hold) 5 8088 RD' and WR' timing TCLRH clk low to RD' high 10 150 OOPS TCVCTX clk low to WR' high 10 110 OOPS TWHDX data hold after WR' TCLCH-30 122 TCLDX-TCLRX data hold time for read 0 -140 DT/R' becomes valid very early, so ok on setup TCHCTV+TCLCH-TCLRH ok if TCLRH and TCHCTV track (DT/R' hold time) (I think it is usually fair to assume that a given chip has fast signals or slow signals, but not a mixture, so TCLRH and TCHCTV probably do track. Should ask Intel I guess.) So it appears that the relationship between the 8088's RD' and WR' and the clock is not strict enough to satisfy the 8068. Now what about using the 9517A-4 to do DMA transfers with the 8068 in multiplexed mode? Problems: There is no convenient source for MAS'. Suppose for the moment that the 9517 can be forced to issue an ADSTB for every cycle (see discussion above on the 9517 external latch). Since the 9517 is using the data bus for the high order adress, we must provide a private copy of 8088 AD1 to 8068 pin MP1, which, during ADSTB, we force LOW to address the data register. We use the Memory-to-8068 DMA DACK to provide MR/W'. 9517A-4 times: MR/W' setup and hold are OK: TDCL DACK to RD' or WR' low 200 DACK appears to remain high after RD' or WR' high by a TCHCL time or 69 ns. This is TAK+TCH-TDCTR ADSTB timing (for MAS') TSTL clk high to ADSTB start 150 TSTT clk high to ADSTB end 110 so ADSTB width is TCY-40 or about 210 ns One thing to do would be to use the beginning of ADSTB to turn on the private address going to 8068 MP1 and use the beginning of RD' or WR' to turn it off. The hold time on the address for MAS' would then be TDCL-TSTT, or 90 ns MDS' spec to CLK (9517 timings for IOWR' and IORD') TDCTR clk high to RD' high 210 (127) OOPS TDCTW clk high to WR' high 150 ( 67) If the clock is high for exactly one third of 250 ns, then these times can be referenced to clk low edge by subtracting 83 (in parens) so that WR' is OK, but RD' may not be. IOWR' width (extended) 2TCY-100 400 IORD' width (normal) 2TCY-50 450 (I am leery of subtracting specs. Why is the 9517 referenced to CLK high, while the 8068 is referenced to clock low?) Data hold time on writes to the 8068: In our system, we have a bus transceiver between the memory data bus and the multiplexed address/data bus that the processor, DMAs, and 8068 are on. In DMA mode, the 9517 would say MEMR' to the memories and IOWR' to the 8068. Since TDCTR is larger than TDCTW, the 9517 provides some data hold time. If we subtract: TDCTR-TDCTW data hold time 60 OOPS however, this time is extended slightly because the end of IORD' disables the memory chips, and then the trailing end of valid data has to propagate through to the 8068 via the bus transceiver. According to Intel, the 8286 transceiver might add 5 to 20 ns to the hold time, depending on loading. So it might work if the subtraction procedure is valid! Data hold time on reads from the 8068: This does not appear to be a problem, since the memories have essentially 0 hold time requirement. Summing up, multiplexed mode problems: 8088 has trouble meeting the MDS' clock sync requirement (45). DMA has the same problem. In addition, the data hold time on DMA writes to the 8068 may be a problem. The circuitry for creating the private address line is fairly ugly (see extra page). If we give up a requirement to read from the master port, (we would not be able to read the status or mode registers, and we would have to use dual port mode always, with master port input and slave port output, then the extra circuits are simplified slightly, since the gate to allow reading is not needed and the private "bus" need not be tristate. (Actually, only bit 1 could not be read, which would save some logic.) Memory mapped 8068 does not seem feasible: AMD made a suggestion that we operate the 8068 as a memory mapped device, rather than as an IO device. We would then use the DMAs to do BLTs into and out of the 8068. This would let the DMA provide the multiplexed address for the 8068, however, with the "private address line MP1" trick, we can do that with the 8068 as an IO device. 1. This would take up 4 DMA channels, as two are needed for input and two for output. Also, only channels 0 and 1 of the 9517 can be used this way. 2. There seems to be no way to hold the destination address fixed in such a mode. One slight possibility would be to set up the DMA channel for a one byte transfer in auto-initialize mode... (!!!) This would permit the memory-to-8068 DMA to run past the end of the requested block, since the 8068 pipe would be kept full and the length of the transfer would be controlled only by the byte count of the 8068-to-memory DMA. 3. Does single transfer mode work in memory-to-memory mode? If not, is the 8068 fast enough to always be ready when the DMA gets there? Also, if the DMA must be in block mode, then our other DMA devices would be locked out... ---------------------- Alternative Multiplexed control mode setup. The idea here is that only the procesor will issue MAS' to the 8068 (See page 38). Thus the 8068 will be permanently selected, with the selected register address being whatever the last register addressed by the processor was. MDS' and MAS' will be carefully qualified by address information elsewhere, so that only IORD' and IOWR' signals intended for the 8068 actually get through. This idea requires that the processor write the first byte of data to the 8068, to set up the register address, and the "write" DMA handle the 2nd and later bytes. This scheme seems ok, but it would make a mess of the software. On page 38, all the control logic for this scheme could be generated by a single 256 by 4 ROM. That would save a couple chips, given a fast ROM. ---------------------- Other stuff: When reset of 8068 is done by simultaneous MAS' low and MDS' low, is there a clock sync. requirement? Time spec 6 implies that the reset must go away syncronized to clk going high... 6 Clk high to (MAS' and MDS') high min 0, max 50 ns we will have to add more syncronizers to meet this one, as our reset is generated by a capacitor... (or is it synch'ed by the 8284?) ---------------------- As a parting comment, why does the 8068 have all these clock syncronization requirements anyway? I would be happier if the algorithm machine inside the 8068 were synchronous and the processor bus interface were asynchronous. If that were true, there would be no need to synchronize MAS', MDS' KEY/DATA, and START to the clock. There would have to be some internal synchronizers (preferably double synchronizers!) inside the 8068 to make the transition accross the boundary, but at least they are hidden from the poor user! (me) It seems to me that only a few signals, like "input register full" and "control register valid" would need to be synchronized. Larry *start* 01101 00024 US Subject: Re: AM 8068 PrintForm: WindowLetter From: Stewart.pa To: AMD Date: 5 Nov. 1981 1:52 pm PST (Thursday) Dan Fuller Advanced Micro Devices 360 N. Sepulveda, Suite 2075 El Segundo, CA 90245 5 Nov. 1981 Dear Mr. Fuller: Attached is the collection of notes I wrote about our problems with the 8068 and 9517. The schematics may be vague, but I think the gist of our troubles are sufficiently described in the text. I just spoke with Subodh Banerjee on the telephone and he told me a very nice way to handle the address latching problem in multiplexed control DMA mode. The idea is to assign two I/O port addresses to the 8068. One of them generates MAS' and the other MDS'. This means that you must do an output to the "address" port to select the 8068 internal register for subsequent writes (reads) to the "data" address. In this way, the DMA transfers do not need to generate an MAS', since the processor will have previously set up the right register. Sincerely, Lawrence C. Stewart cc: Subodh Banerjee (AMD) Severo Ornstein (Xerox) *start* 02148 00024 US Date: 6 Nov. 1981 2:24 pm PST (Friday) From: Ornstein.PA Subject: Lark (Etherphone) Hardware Update To: VoiceProject^, Lampson, Taylor, McCreight, Thacker, Taft, Levin, Dalal, Baskett, Schroeder Reply-To: Ornstein Larry and I have got the Lark hardware design beaten more or less into shape and we're about ready to do layout. The DA system accepts (though not gracefully!) the set of oddball chip shapes we've got. Within a week or so we should be ready to have the board built - and then start debugging it. The most apparently recalcitrant item in the design is the AMD encryption chip which doesn't speak easily to the other stuff. (It's not clear they've ever hooked it to ANY computer). We have surrounded it with a cloud of SSI which we hope will make it happy (but may conceivably obscure problems). Our intention is to charge ahead with this design in order to try to get at least the central items working. Various chips (guess which) can be left unplugged until we're ready to face them. That then will give us a Rev A board that will let Larry get started on the software. It seems certain that we will need to rework, improve (maybe even finish parts of) the design and try out the changes before proceeding to quantity production. To let us do that without disturbing the software development, we are planning to build a second (Rev B) prototype board. (We're trying to do both boards in such a way that they can eventually be stripped and reclaimed since the underlying boards are scarce and expensive). We can report that even macro-design with LSI items is a challenging business. E.g. the designer of AMD's DMA-chip (of which Intel's is a copy) and who apparently also had a hand in the encryption chip design, is now a student at Harvard. When you ask deep questions you often get a guess for an answer. Generally the documentation is VERY spotty - though some is really excellent. For instance there is a wonderful discussion of synchronizer glitching (warmed the cockles of my heart) in one of the AMD application sheets - written, of course, by the guy now at Harvard. Severo and Larry *start* 00433 00024 US Date: 6 Nov. 1981 4:46 pm PST (Friday) From: Birrell.pa Subject: Re: Lark.GV In-reply-to: Your message of 3 Nov. 1981 5:12 pm PST (Tuesday) To: Swinehart cc: VoiceProject^, Schroeder I've create a "Lark" registry for you, with owners Swinehart, Stewart, Owicki. The registry is on Cabernet and Zinfandel. Please be careful with it, and ask Mike or me before you try anything you don't understand. Andrew *start* 00816 00024 US Date: 8 NOV 1981 2109-PST From: STEWART.PA Subject: Auburntest help requested... To: Swinehart cc: Stewart My program AITones, which I wrote because I didn't thing Auburntest handled the DAA stuff, is capable of calling me on the phone. It goes offhook and feeps at the phone line (4461), making my phone, (4477) ring. When I answer, I can hear AITones feeping at me as I hit keys. Auburntest can pick up the phone line, or answer it. When I call auburntest, I can hear, pretty loud, the feeps, but when I ask Auburntest to call me it doesn't work. As best I can tell, the tone tables are identical. The feep frequencies are different in the LSB. I tried to make the clock rates identical. What is happening? Does auburntest think there is an Alto crystal in there? -Larry *start* 02576 00024 US Date: 17 Nov. 1981 9:50 am PST (Tuesday) From: Stewart.PA Subject: Telephone switching To: VoiceProject^ Reply-To: Stewart I thought this was a nicely written message. I wonder if our system will get this complicated. --------------------------- Date: 16 Nov 1981 2046-EST From: John R. Covert To: Frankston at MIT-MULTICS Subject: Newton No. 1 XBar, 110 The 969 exchange in Newton is No. 1 XBar. There are no SXS exchanges in the Boston Metro dialing area. The acceptance of an infinite string of 1s is a typical No. 1 and No. 5 XBar feature and has to do with the early belief that an initial 1 pulse shouldn't do anything at all. From 1921 Telco documentation: The use of ... office codes starting with "1" is undesirable due to the liability of a subscriber causing a "preliminary pulse" when making a call. A preliminary pulse may be pro- duced by an unintentional momentary interruption of the subscriber's line at the switchhook springs after the re- ceiver is lifted and before dialing is started, as might be caused by accidentally striking the hook with the receiver. In No. 1 XBars in places where the "1" is not used (and those places are disappearing rapidly) an initial "1" does not even make the dial tone go away. "1" became used as an access code from SxS areas because it provided an inexpensive way to send all "1" level calls to the toll switcher. The SxS exchanges in the Bay Area which do not require "1" have a huge kludge attached to them to properly process calls. This kludge is quite unlike a director -- dialing "20" puts you right on a toll trunk which takes the rest of what you dial. Similar kludges exist for SxS in areas that have 1+ dialing and also 113 information codes: Dialing "1" puts you on the toll trunk; the second "1" tears down the connection to the toll trunk and puts you through to the selector level for the "11x" services. In No. 2 ESS, no similar kludges exist because the machine translates what you dial via one, three, and six digit translate tables. "110" does not get you the operator EXCEPT when you already have an operator trunk active, flash for add-on dial-tone, and dial "110". Under any other circumstance, "110" is an error. In No. 1 ESS, and probably in No. 2 as well, it is a useful test to see if a trunk is the type trunk which sends your number down the wire. Operator trunks, number read- back trunks, and, in some areas, "911" trunks have this property and all get flashed upon when you flash for add-on and dial "*0" or "110". *start* 00539 00024 US Mail-from: Arpanet host SU-AI rcvd at 20-NOV-81 1721-PST Date: Friday, 20 Nov 1981 17:21-PST To: Stewart at PARC-MAXC Subject: 8086 hll From: ly at ISL ------- Forwarded Message Date: Friday, 20 Nov 1981 10:10-PST To: ly at ISL Cc: gill at ISL Subject: 8086 HLL From: gill at ISL 1. Pascal by Language Resources ($4800) 2. C cross compilers (Unix, RT-11, RSX, Unix 32/V, and VMS) Advanced Digital Products ($1750) If you can find the addresses or other info, let me know. ------- End of Forwarded Message